Are You Ready for Some Futsal?

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The nets have disappeared. Tennis balls are nowhere in sight. This evening, people are playing with a different kind of ball.

On the chain-link fence that surrounds the courts, spray paint marks the goals. Shots whiz by like cars on a freeway.

English and Spanish blend as players chant "Corre! Corre!" ("Run!") and "Mira! Mira!" ("Look!"). The murmurs from onlookers _ "nice" and "wow" _ swell after each dazzling play.

The matches on this concrete court are quick. The first team to score wins. Losers retreat to wooden benches, ceding to the next challenger.

Arturo Sanchez is in his element. The 20-year-old from Long Beach grew up in a predominantly black neighborhood, following friends into basketball and football. But when Sanchez moved to a side of town dominated by Latinos, he fell in love with soccer.

During the day, the soccer field down the road at DeForest Park was overrun with youth leagues and when night fell, the unlighted field was dark. The tennis courts, though, were bathed in light.

So, several years ago, Sanchez and a group of friends began to turn the tennis courts into miniaturized, rock-hard soccer courts, mimicking what Brazilians and other Latin Americans started doing nearly a century ago _ re-imagining any flat, open space, from basketball gyms to rooftops, as a soccer field.

They know this fast-paced and squeezed-down version of soccer as futsal.

With existing soccer fields beaten down from constant use and a lack of green space in urban neighborhoods to build more, futsal has rolled into parks across the nation to meet the growing demand of soccer-loving millennials.

Nearly every player prefers a more forgiving field of grass, but futsal courts have come to be viewed as the best available option (not to mention that building a futsal court costs about $25,000, or 10 percent of the bill for a normal soccer field).

Parks officials say the demand for soccer space is so strong that some areas meant for tennis, basketball or volleyball have seen more soccer balls bounced on them than anything else in recent years _ providing another sign of how the nation's growing Latino population is reshaping landscapes.

The emphasis on futsal is expected to triple the number of places to play in the region, from about 15 to 45 during the next two years. The figure includes private facilities that charge fees to players.

"What's driven the growth of futsal courts is you can provide a playable space at a smaller cost and in a smaller area," said Patrick Escobar, a vice president of the LA84 Foundation, which disburses surplus money from the 1984 Olympics and has funded some of the construction.

At DeForest Park, teenagers and people in their 20s come for pickup games from as far as Torrance, Paramount and Downey. First-timers arrive after seeing posts about "quick soccer" or futsal on Facebook.

The rhythm is noticeably different from a full-fledged soccer game. The boom-run, bam-run, tap-strike of soccer is replaced by zap-zap, zap-tap-strike in futsal's tighter quarters.

Normally played with teams of five rather than 11 as in soccer, futsal increases the amount of times each player kicks the ball, and a smaller, heavier ball that produces quicker rolls and requires harder kicks.

"There's not really positions in futsal," Sanchez said. "So you have to know how to pass really fast, how to attack in small spaces and how to defend all at once."

Soccer players may let the ball soar a long distance and rely on their own speed to attack the goal. In futsal, players rely on footwork as they weave past one another. There's little margin for error.

Tap the ball too hard and it will sail out of bounds; fail to give it enough zip and a defender is there to steal it away. There's not enough space to outrace another player for a misplaced ball.

"Here, I can experiment and see if I can do these new tricks quickly in a small space," Sanchez said. "If I can humiliate a lot of people in futsal, it's easier on the big field."

Soccer experts say that children improve at soccer more quickly if they play futsal. That draws some high school soccer players to DeForest during the off-season as they try to emulate international soccer legends such as Brazil's Ronaldinho and Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo. Last year, the U.S. Soccer Federation began requiring some of its academy teams to play futsal during the off-season.

When played with official rules, futsal is also distinct from indoor soccer (though for marketing purposes, the names are often interchangeable). Indoor soccer fields typically resemble a hockey rink, and kicks that bounce off surrounding walls are legal. In contrast, futsal has an out-of-bounds line just like soccer and sneakers or running shoes are worn instead of cleats.

(c)2014 Los Angeles Times

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